Champions duel at Imola

Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher won today’s San Marino Grand Prix (April 23rd) after beating Fernando Alonso at Imola. This was the German’s 85th Grand Prix victory and his first in this year’s championship.

It was a carbon-copy of last year’s race as the Ferrari and Renault challenged each other for victory. This time it was Michael ahead of Fernando to take his first ‘proper’ win after an 18-month winless spell (not including that ‘farce’ race at Indianapolis back in 2005).

Good result for the Spaniard despite finishing a close second. Eight points would do nicely for his drivers’ championship. He should have won the race but the team took the risk to pit the car earlier than expected (in the second pit-stop), in order to get ahead of the Ferrari… It didn’t work out and Alonso tried his best to past the leading Ferrari in the closing stages of the Grand Prix.

McLaren’s Juan Pablo Montoya drove a solid race from seventh to finish third. But I expected a better result/pace from McLaren by now…

As for Jenson Button, he is suffering so much bad luck lately… Looked promising when he qualified second and was able to keep up the pace of Michael in the earlier stages of the race. It all went wrong during the second pit-stop when the lollipop man gave the all-clear signal to go, despite the fuel hose still attached to the car…

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